42 ZOOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY 



in so far as concerns a large number of remarkable species and some 

 thousands that are not remarkable. It appears as though the super- 

 stition of the ancient Egyptians were inspired by nature for the purpose 

 of leaving a record of her history." 



" It is impossible," continue the authors of the report, " to control 

 our flights of imagination, on seeing still preserved with its smallest 

 bones and hair, perfectly recognisable, an animal which two or three 

 thousand years ago had in Thebes or Memphis its priests and altars. 

 But without giving rein to all the ideas suggested by this approach 

 to antiquity, we shall confine ourselves to the announcement that 

 this part of M. Geoffroy's collection shows that these animals are 

 exactly similar to those of to-day." {Annales du Muséum d'Hist. 

 natur., vol. i. pp. 235 and 236.) 



I do not refuse to believe in the close resemblance of these animals 

 with individuals of the same species living to-day. Thus, the birds 

 that were worshipped and embalmed by the Egyptians two or three 

 thousand years ago are still exactly like those which now live in that 

 country. 



It would indeed be very odd if it were otherwise ; for the position 

 and climate of Egypt are still very nearly what they were in those 

 times. Now the birds which live there, being still in the same conditions 

 as they were formerly, could not possibly have been forced into a change 

 of habits. 



Furthermore, it is obvious that birds, since they can travel so easily 

 and choose the places which suit them, are less hable than many other 

 animals to suffer from variations in local conditions, and hence 

 less hindered in their habits. 



Indeed there is nothing in the observation now cited that is con- 

 trary to the principles which I have set forth on this subject ; or 

 which proves that the animals concerned have existed in nature for 

 all time ; it proves only that they inhabited Egypt two or three 

 thousand years ago ; and every man who has any habit of reflection 

 and at the same time of observing the monuments of nature's 

 antiquity will easily appreciate the import of a duration of two or three 

 thousand years in comparison with it. 



Hence we may be sure that this appearance of stability of the 

 things in nature will by the vulgar always be taken for reality ; 

 because people in general judge everything with reference to themselves. 



For the man who forms his judgment only with reference to the 

 changes that he himself perceives, t-he eras of these mutations are 

 stationary states which appear to him to be unlimited, on account 

 of the shortness of the existence of individuals of his own species. 



